


Ēoh

by catch_you_later



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Era, Depression, Epic, Epic Friendship, Epic Love, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Immortality, Magic, Sacred Trees, Transformation, Trees, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 20:31:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18239852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catch_you_later/pseuds/catch_you_later
Summary: He could not remember how long he had sat there. And he does not really care, either.A scenario of what happens to Merlin after Arthur dies.Can be read either as an epic friendship or Merthur. Your choice.





	Ēoh

During the first days, Merlin’s body had felt loose and limber. Agile. Young.

 

He can barely remember it.

 

Instead, he could feel the dry yet smooth texture of the wooden boat like it was just yesterday that he crossed the cursed lake with the mortal remains of his beloved regent.

The scratchiness of a cloak.

The coldness of chain mail.

The weight of his best friend.

He could remember those feelings so well.

 

After he had dutifully laid his king to rest, he had sunk down to the earth with a weighty _thump_.

He had cried and cried and cried. He had felt the tears making cold tracks on his flaming face, the growing hoarseness of his throat, the sobs wracking his chest. He had felt it all.

Yet it didn’t matter, hadn’t mattered.

Nothing did anymore.

 

When the knights arrived to ask about their king, he could not say anything.

When the queen came to ask about her king, he could not say anything, frozen and voiceless. Eventually, when the queen had sat with him a night and a day, he cast his sorrowful eyes on her and confessed his failure. Her soul-deep weeping had sounded like it had come from the other end of a long, dark tunnel.

His limbs had felt numb.

 

Occasionally Percival or Leon – or Gaius or Gwen – would drop by to keep him company. They even dragged a group of suitable stones around him for them to sit on. A laughably weak imitation of the Round Table. He might have laughed hysterically once the thought occurred to him. He can’t remember if he had had company at that moment or not.

There had also been countless cascades of tears, but they came and went without him noticing, silent streams on his cheeks.

 

His mother visited a number of times as well. Once she had stayed for a whole month, even though she set herself back financially with not tending to the fields back at Ealdor. She had tried to speak to him, make him answer her – and while a part of him had wanted to do that, he had felt like he no longer belonged to this world without _him_ so he had stayed quiet. She had tried to get him to eat, to sleep, but he did not function that way anymore. She had given up in the end.

 

He didn’t know how long he stayed there, rooted on the same spot.

Time had lost its purpose while he grieved. The only thing of any importance was that he found out he no longer needed food or water to survive. He didn’t need sleep either, and slept only because it was a momentary relief from the grey sadness he now drifted in. Besides, with the way he was, dreams did not differ too much from reality.

 

He did not know how long he had stayed there, but later he was told that it had been a year.

 

* * *

 

After the year had run its’ course, he rose.

 

He tried to shake off the numb woodiness of his limbs, but couldn’t quite manage.

 

He remained a hollow puppet, going through motions because that was expected.

 

He helped Gwen and the knights rule the kingdom their king – their _friend_ – had left behind. He helped Gaius pass on his trade to another apprentice. He knew that was not his path anymore.

 

He stayed with them, watching them age and die one after the other, only amplifying his hollowness.

 

After the very last one of them drew her final breath, he left.

 

He returned to the shore, the exact same place where he had left, and sat down.

 

The hollowness spread.

 

* * *

 

 

Most days he felt so cold. So _old_. Like the world had stopped turning because _he_ had stopped breathing and the warlock was imprisoned in this single glacial moment, hopelessly waiting for _him_ to return.

 

Or maybe it was his own time that had stopped.

 

* * *

 

 

The stone seats of the knights and the queen grow dark green moss coats.

 

So does Merlin.

 

* * *

 

Slowly, oh so slowly, he changes.

 

Nothing seems all that urgent, that close anymore.

 

His feelings become slower, encased in amber, coagulating in his heartwood.

 

The ache in his chest is alleviated a little by the strong roots he has grown into the soil of the resting place of his king, sheltering, protecting. 

 

* * *

 

Now he creaks and groans instead of aches and sighs.

 

Now he drinks rain, breathes the sunlight.

 

Now he feels lighter and heavier in the same time.

 

Now he grows.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes he dreams of fire and it scares him even more than before.

 

On those days he screams, his voice transforming into a strong tempest, tearing through the island.

 

 

 

 

And yet, the one time a forest fire reaches his island, his skin - _bark_ \- miraculously _doesn’t_ catch fire.

 

 

 

 

He is not sure whether that is a curse or not.

  

* * *

 

 

These days, he can barely remember what his body felt like  _before_.

 

These days, he knows only the creaking, croaking of centuries-old branches. 

 

The condensed, suppressed grief in his heartwood.

 

The widespread, strong roots surrounding the final resting place of his love.

 

Sheltering.

 

Protecting.

 

Guarding.

 

From now to eternity.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ēoh means yew, one of the oldest tree species in Europe. They are said to live up to one thousand and six hundred years old. 
> 
> In religion, yews are thought to symbolize eternity due to their long life, and death due to their poisonous nature. They were found in ancient druid's sacred groves and parts of yew were used in some funeral rites.
> 
> There's also a character in The Adventure of the Sons of Eochaid Mugmedón who "rescues from a burning forge only the 'withered wood' of yew, which will not burn."


End file.
